Ipoh: The 14th Perak State Legislative Assembly on Wednesday passed Budget 2019 totalling RM1.061 billion after it was tabled on Dec 27 and debated over three days.Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Ahmad Faizal Azumu (pic) in winding said the budget themed Together Driving Hopes was debated by 47 assemblymen.

In his winding-up, Ahmad Faizal (Bersatu-Chenderiang) said the Movie Animation Park Studio (Maps) here was capable of shouldering its operation expenditure without depending on capital injection from the government.

"The operation is running well and there are many visitors to Maps," he said.

He also told the assembly that the state government was prepared to consider if there are private parties who wish to manage the park.

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Touching on the food and health card initiative introduced by the state government, Ahmad Faizal admitted the 17,000 recipients is small compared to number of people eligible to receive aid including Orang Asli.

"However, we need to look at the long term to get them of poverty.

"Let us not be proud with the number we want to help but we should be proud with those who succeeded in coming out of the poverty line.

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The state government has allocated RM17 million for food card as well as RM5 million for health card for 2019.

The facilities would be coordinated by Perak Foundation with a value RM80 per month for food card and RM300 a year for health card for each recipient. – Bernama